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Friday, 26 April 2013

okay quick note, i only tend to find time to read when i'm on transit simply because i can't do much else other then sketch.
so this book, aside from other books bumping it out of reading position has been unfinished on my kindle for a long time.
well why not just sit down and read it like i did Aaron pogues novel?
cause... it was painful to read this book.
now i read knights eye of divinity before i read this.... the two are separate series that take place in the same world just different times.

now Eye of Divinity had some problems... major problems... there was a lot of instant gratification for plot lines and some choices were doubled back on so fast that i felt like i was getting a case of whiplash.
but the decent plot held it together for me ...
or so i thought.
see... before i read this book i had a string of mediocre to absolutely rage inducingly bad anime and novels... this was a breath of fresh air and i was forgiving it a lot since it put me in a good mood despite the poor writing... the plot was interesting. sometimes i can get past weak writing if he characters are interesting enough.

this book made me wonder if they was the first time he ever tried to pen a novel. according to amazon this book was released a month later.... that doesn't mean it was written later though so... who knows...

I enjoy documentaries.
so when a friend of mine asked what documentary i wanted to see today i looked at the list and one really caught my attention.

I'm one of those people who reads the terms and conditions. everytime.
some of the stuff in them is kinda important as an artist because some sites will lay copyright claim to your work and potentially make money of it without your consent. as an artist i kinda need to hold onto my IP and Copyright for dear life cause... it's all i've got.

i was expecting one of two things.

1. i expected it to be a documentary exposing the amount of power the terms and conditions hold over you and how you should just delete all accounts and live in a cave on mars.

2. just talking about how stupid the terms and conditions can be.

i got a bit of the first.... but overall it was a really quite.... moderate.

The film for the most part talks about how the fact that the data websites like google and facebook can and are held in a 'encrypted' database.... which can easily enough be decrypted and cross searched and linked to you.
pretty much everything you do online/on your phone/around a camera is recorded forever.
so maybe we shouldn't be as open as some people tend to be... talking about how much they hate their boss or how much sex they are having... honestly this isn't something the world needs to know.

it had some examples of how this technology that is used to prevent crime was really just being used to stop protests or even a flash mob... instead of things like terrorist.... now i'm sure those still get caught or flagged... but still it's a bit scary some of the examples of normal people being questioned or held simply for saying a joke or planning a protest.

in the end the message is know what your getting into and understand that it's all public... even stuff you make private even things that are encrypted it's still all out there... so don't be an asshole and keep some shit to yourself if you want to have any remaining privacy left.

the end was one of the more uplifting endings to a documentary i had seen in a while, i wont spoil it but it made someone feel more human then he ever seems any other times we see them.

this doesn't completely villify companies like google or facebook or tumblr... kinda the opposite.
social media is a sort of necessary evil, everyone uses it, just be smart and understand that companies are always watching... always trying to sell things to you... using info they got from other sites.

the screening had the creator of the film, it was good to hear him answer questions i felt bad that some people asked him about why this technology didn't stop the incredibly sad boston bombing, he's just a film maker guys... he can't know why and your just putting him on the spot.

but yeah great documentary, i have a feeling it will eventually be on netflix since the documentary festival was sponsored by them and yeah netflix is a great place for documentaries to end up.
i suggest that if you have a chance see it for yourself and make your own opinion. i didn;t want to spoil too much cause yeah, it's fairly new.

but yeah i enjoyed it... unlike the other thing i finished on the way home........ i'll post that tomorrow though... i wanna end this feeling good.

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

normally when i do dropped things it's because they are bad
not this case with this game.
this game is really really good.
I'm just an idiot.

See i have played a few SMT games.
I've played all of P3, i still have to beat the answer chapter but i have beaten all of 'the journey'
i have play most of P4, i'm right at the end but i do this terrible thing of getting to the end of games then abandonment them for new releases and eventually going back so as long as my ps2 still works/it hasn't eaten my save i will finish it.
I have P1 and P2 but I'm at the start of both.
and when i get my 3ds i figured it was time to branch away from Persona and move into the other games in the SMT series. in this case Devil survivor.
so what did i do that was so foolish?
I played on normal mode.

see... i played other games on normal... cause even though I'm terrible at games i still want to try and challenge myself.
and now i don't think i can win.

this game is punishing with how difficult it is.
it's a fun challenge, but every few months for over a year now i pop it in... grind a few levels and get my ass handed to me every single time.
and i hate grinding.
i REALLY hate grinding. I feel, and this isn't a fact or anything just my personal opinion, I feel that if I play all the normal fights in the game that should give me at least a fighting chances against the final boss. by no means should it be simple but i should be able to win.
and i just can't
and I've now gained at least 10 levels
so whats the issue.
I'm stuck on a boss who's name i can't really say cause it's a bit of a spoiler but I'll just say there is a computer security system that needs to be hacked.
you have four party members you can dispatch.... unless I've really screwed up the game and i can actually have more... doubt it.

in this mission there is a character you have to deploy, no probably he's one of my stronger ones.
the other three are the main character and whoever else you want.

now you have to protect an NPC, so one character down, use the other character to hack the spots you told, 2 down... potentially you may have to guard him as well if he's getting attacked from every angle but i just equip him with the ability to heal himself and hope he lasts. still potentially 3 down.
and then you have to fight this giant security system that can attack from a distance with you 1-2 remaining characters.
OH WAIT that is not quite challenging enough.
almost every turn 1-3 monsters spawn and these monsters have lovely traits like... Nul Strike damage, which means you have to use mp, some abilities let you regain mp but other don't and if you run out then you can't heal yourself... and if you can't heal you're probably going to get murdered.
BUT IT GETS BETTER.
one of these monsters that looks like... well... SMT is kinda infamous for what they base their monster drawings on... anyways lets just say it's a little vulgar. but hey they do it to both genders so i guess i can't complain.
anyways these monsters also have the ability to attack from a range, and if you can't you kind just get beat up and it's just.... too many things with too few characters.
it doesn't help that the super computer is lv 70 and I'm only lv 63... and i don't wanna grind anymore... cause grinding isn't fun.

i may try picking a different ending, essentially on the last in game day you get the joy of picking between whichever ending you managed to unlock based on your performance during the other days.

SPOILERS
the major choices i got were simply.
become god and enslave humanity to save it and wipe out the demons.
Become king of the world and fight against god and possibly kill all the humans so demons can roam.
there was something else but those are the two i remember... i didn't like either option.... i just wanted a nice middle ground where neither side one and i think that is an option but i didn't meet the requirements. END SPOILERS

so yeah maybe if i pick a different route i wont need to fight that boss.... but i probably will so yeah just rather not.

maybe one day i'll grind another 15 levels and beat the game finally... but right now i just suck too much.

still great game, great story.... play on easy mode.

And a quick edit now that it's morning and i can think and type a little better.
I noticed that their are 'titles' in the game, none of which i ended up unlocking.
and i don't think i ever could *clears throat*
most are preventing certain peoples death... i thought i had everyone survive but clearly no.
register all demons except those that are special... that would take so much time...
100% complete compendium... wow
learn all cracked skills, i liked cracked skills so i may have ended up getting this... but doubtful
finish the game in a certain way..... what... what does that even mean? oh it's just different endings...
finish with no free battles.
um....
is that even possible?
as i mentioned before i've had to grind this entire time by doing free battles just to be strong enough not to die...
finish game with no deaths, seems possibly but tricky... unless they mean no characters or summons dying in battle cause no... that is impossible.
then the last four seem to be defeat special bosses.

Again most of the time when i drop games it's cause i don't like the story.... not the case, i really really like this game... just where i am now i doubt i will ever beat it UNLESS i start over on easy...
and even then i doubt i could win
i need a very easy mode...
oh a quick thing to note, SMT games and Persona games play different, so do not go into SMT expecting it to play like persona, it's turn based and grid based with static art, and it's really really fun.

hm what should i play next, probably dragon quest 5 since my friend my kill me if i have his copy any longer. but i also kinda way play pokemon white 2... even though it's just... missing something..

Monday, 22 April 2013

it's been a while since i've done non-chibi fan art.
why is that?
probably becasue it's easier for me to do fan art in my style when it's chibi....

still i Got my Godoka (yes i know it's 'ultimate madoka', Godoka is more fun to say) Figma and i put it in a pose and figured.
"hey, why not draw that."
especially since i can't take any pics of her or asune cause i just don't have anywhere to take them for the moment.

so yeah i draw it and realized one thing really fast.
The anatomy used in PMMM works really well........... but it is so incredibly wrong.
their shoulders.... why are they so small?
why are the cheek bones so low?
why is a dress that is so skin tight you can see the countour of her stomach go to something so flowy?

so after i fixed the smoke pouring out of my ears i did my best to draw her in my style.
this has always been hard for me and is the number 1 reason i don't do fanart much, how do you make a character still look like the character in question but have it be your style.
"well you could just emulate the actual style"
and i did try but... i draw the way i draw cause thats what makes me happy.

oh well so i posted the skecth on tumblr and i knew most of the problems had to do with the fact that i ran out space on the page.

it meant that the arrow was a bit short, the hand was a bit short and the wings didn't have quite enough space.

all things i easily fixed in photoshop.

with this piece i did the background first since i had an idea for that and it wanted her to compliment it. So i opened handy dandy illustrator to make a close (though really not that close) version of the magic circle that you see as the backdrop of her box.
then i brough it over to photoshop and tweaked it and i was actually really happy with how it looked, if nothing else i was please with the BG.

I wanted to finish this yesterday but my arm is still not 100% so i had to stop, so i guess this is close to halfway done.

then today throughout the day i kept working on it bit by bit since taking breaks helps my arm not be in so much pain later. and now i have a finished godoka piece.

I am really happy with it, especially considering it just started as "i'm gunna draw my figure!"

though i am really sad that i had to put watermarks on it.
you have no idea how much watermarks make me cry, but i've just had too many people sharing my my art and removing the credit cause tumblr still doesn't have a system where the original post cannot be edited.
so yeah... ugly watermarks but i put them over to the side so hopefully it's not too obtrusive.

anyways i really hope you like it, Puella Magi Madoka Magica can be seen for free and legally on Crunchyroll so i suggest you go watch it since it was a nice breath of fresh air to the Magical Girl Genre

Thursday, 18 April 2013

A while back my friend sent me a review of a fairly unheard of rhythm game called Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure.

they mentioned how it was a lot like Prof. Layton in it's design just instead of puzzles it was little rhythm games.

being that i like Prof. Layton games and i really like Rhythm games i figured if i saw i'd try it out.

So i picked it up, a used copy which i know doesn't help the developer at all but it's the only one they had, put it in my 3ds and thought ah the style is kinda cute and the 3d for the 2d animated scenes is fairly nice.
i went to save and i saw how far the person who owned this previously got.
one song
one song in and he returned it.

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

hm.... i have a feeling this will mostly be story time cause i can't say much plot wise without spoilers...

so i will just say this game is really good, it's a sequel to Nine Persons Nine Hours Nine doors but it can technically be enjoyed as a stand alone title (but seriously if you have the ability to play DS games try and find 999 before you play this one... it's really good)
that being said if possible get the PSVita version of this game.
in the 3ds version there is a game breaking glitch that occurs if you save in the PEC room... it'll crash and erase/corrupt your save and this is a game with only one save file so.... that can be irritating.

it never happened to me cause i knew about it and just didn't save but it did crash on me twice, once in the archive and once in the PEC room simply cause i had been playing for too long and for some reason the 3ds version crashes if you have been playing too long.

anyways yeah... buy the game just get the vita versions.

ok i'm going to TRY to do this as spoiler free as possible.
i may not succeed.

Tuesday, 16 April 2013

I really liked the idea behind it so i decided yeah, this can be the second image in a series.
I'm actually not a fan of series cause... well they have rules and i'm bad at sticking to rules... however just drawing and saying this works in that series is much better for me...

anyways i started inking her and my arm decided a reoccurring chronic shoulder injury i have was just gonna flare up... when this happens i lose almost all my grip strength and if i push it i can end up going to physio to get things to a point where i can use my arm again.
so, even though letting a picture sit is dangerous cause if i draw something else i may abandon the previous sketch.
but... in this case i couldn't draw at all so... nothing else got done.
however a week later and i managed (even though it mean only a few lines a day before taking a break) to finish the line art.

however it wasn't quite looking... special enough... so i added a 'crap' ton of stars.
. . . see when i'm in pain i do stupid things... like make my life much harder then it needs to be.

also on top of that i changed the direction of the fabric flowing out of the star cause i didn't like how it looked going the other way.

so... at this point i'm ealizign what a moron i am cause
a) the the light source beign around the biggest star the light is going to be at a different angle for pretty much every single solitary star which all have a way they are facing and i want to do cast shadows cause normally i get lazy and don't do them but i've already sent so much time on it...

on the first day of colouring i got the flat colour and the stars done.
on the second day i got the drapery coming out of the star

and then the third day i got everything else and the cast shadows done....
and then just now i finished the bg.
i think a rough estimate of how long i spent on this piece including line art an sketch is somewhere around 15 hours.... if not more.
and a good 6-8 of it was in the stars and cloth alone...
but in the end i'm happy with what i got.

i wanted to give it a bit of a painterly fee so i actually spent a large cunk of time with no lines to make sure the forms made sense and the backround i made a custom brush to get that effect and i may not try to use it to colour and entire piece... we'll see (i've been making a lot of brushes lately... it's so nice ot make things that you can't find otherwise.

so yeah i hop you like it and maybe i'll do another pic with estelle... i technically have one thumbnailed.

Monday, 15 April 2013

I try to watch an episode of something before i sleep, i don't always but it gives me a chance to enjoy the stuff in my collect without having to sit down and watch a volume at a time.
when i write these on series i finished more likely then not i finished them the night before and decided to do that sleeping thing thats all the rage before i write them.
partly cause my spelling is bad enough as is and i don't need being half asleep effecting it.
partly cause most of what i have to say on this little blog doesn't need to be said right away.

I knew the instant i finished macross plus i just couldn't wait till morning... that if i did i'd just be up all night thinking about what i wanted to write... so screw it i don't care that i have to get up early and that it's nearly midnight... don't care... it's not like i'd be sleeping now anyways.

Friday, 12 April 2013

This season has a lot of mech and a lot of moe.... oh joy...
Also these are just my personal opinion based on what i like and my personal biases.
i'm not saying shows are bad when i say i wont be continuing them... they just, for whatever reason, couldn't catch my interest.

Wednesday, 10 April 2013

back when i was younger there were three major anime licencing companies fighting for my money.
these were not the only companies who licensed things... just the companies that licensed stuff i tended to enjoy.

ADV, Geneon, Funimation.

these three took most of my money.... ADV taking the most and Funi taking the least.

now i wasn't super loyal to adv and i didn't hate funimation... it was just kinda how things ended up... ADV had a large variety of 13-26 episode titles and tended to be packed with special features which is something i look for when i think "is this worth my hard earned money."

Geneon also tended to have a lot of nice features and also had a lot of episodes per disks.

Funimation had some great titles but they were either long or just not my thing... i also wasn't a fan of paying that much for a cardboard boxset.... a but more on that later.

so... a few days ago (4 to be exact) i saw a post talkign about these really pretty clear casses from wasabi for 3ds
out of curiosity i check out the site to see if they ship to North America at all.
first i had the joy of finding out how to switch to english (really easy theres a bar at the top i just wasn't really looking.) and i find out they ship worldwide and have many different cases for many different devices from 3ds to ps vita to iphones to ps3 to whatever... lots of choice.

so i look around and i fall in one design that looks like blossoms (i thought they were carry but the theme says Ume which is plum so i'm gunna go with plum blososms) covering half the 3ds.
so i click on it and realize there is also a white cat on the other side.

next thing i knew i had added it to my cart.
but i figured since i'm there.... i look at the Ps vita skins.
now.... i don't own a vita.... but i'll be getting one in the fall (i keep hearing sep 25 but i don't think it's 100% official) when Ys 4 Memories in celceta releases.
yes... an Ys game is a system seller for me.... i need help.
anyways i looked and found a skin that had a red bg (you'll see in a second how if i can manage it it'll end up being red) called Ryusuinisakura and it was really pretty and again... more pretty flowers... so i got it and it'll handy for when i eventually get the psvita.

now... PICTURE TIME!

thats right... after only 4 days it arrived... and shipping was 10 bucks... i'm worry that i'll get a call saying the handling charges are insane! (dhl did that to me once with a think geek order... i was pissed cause handling was 5 bucks more then the ship[ping had been...) but i doubt it cause it just came in regular mail.

anyways...

so these are the two i got, the one is a clear plastic that clips on and the other is just a simple skin.

close ups of them in the packaging

a quick shot before i made sure both were clean and ready to put on.
it was really easy to clip on which was nice.

and here it is on my 3ds... i love it i think it just looks so pretty and the only downfall i can see is that it no longer fits in the cradle so if i wanna charge it i have to plug it in..
yeah i think i can manage that.

so yeah... i'll probably do another of these in the fall when i get my vita.

for now i have to go play some virtues last reward on my adorable 3ds~

Sunday, 7 April 2013

yeah.... now i get the pleasure of taking everything that made the series good and throwing it out the window.

I have to spoil the ending to explain why i can't keep reading so if you still want to give the manga a chance turn around now... though i would suggest that you stop reading once Rin gets into highschool.

also there may be some rage in this post... but keep in mind i'm more upset that it took such a sweet and sincere show and pretty much spit on everything it stood for. i have to take back EVERY nice thing i ever said about it... i'm not happy about that.

But first Story time and from here on out.... SPOILERS

I watch a lot of That guy with the Glasses contributors. they are great for background noise when i'm working on things like art. However there is one i don't tend to watch.
Weekly Manga recap.
and saying that i don't watch/listen to it isn't completely correct... i listen to the first half but once they start talking about the weekly shonen jump titles that just doesn't pertain to my interests so i tend to close the video... unless one of the pod-casters starts out with "this is how bleach got worse" cause it's a little funny to hear him rage. it's horrible to say but oh well...
anyways for this past episode the flavor text to make you want to watch the video was "see how Usagi drop has become Nic's most hater manga" or something along those lines.

now if i haven't been clear i liked the show... and i had been loving the manga since it was going into stuff about Rin being a teenager... some things worried me... her attachment to a certain character but i figured the author wouldn't be stupid enough to go that route. (i should have learned by now)
but my curiosity got the better of me... how could such a sweet and sincere show be someones most hated? like i get that they don't like shojo or josei since it's not really made for them... but to be most hated it has to do something to offend the reader.... what the hell happened?
so i loaded up the video and listened.
at first they were positive so that made me even more curious as to how could they go from mild enjoyment to pure hatred so quick.

then he starts talking about how if you want to like the show stop when rin goes to high school... because thats all leading to Rin trying to go out with her adoptive father.

I.... i didn't believe what i had just heard... i mean... it had been hinted to in what i had read so far but.... no... she's his aunt/adoptive daughter.... NO....
so.... i clicked it so i could hear him say it again.
no no no no no maybe he was wrong.... i started reading a bit of volume 8.... and i knew it was right cause they overtly say that Rin doesn't see Daikichi as her father and infact wants to have his babies.

my heart broke.
I had suggested people go watch the show... and to be fair the portion the anime covers is adorable and fine but... the second half makes all that stuff.... kinda gross. Like i really hate that kind of plotline in any medium.... and the fact that it was happening in something i had enjoyed so much...
i tried to finish it... but know where it's going.... i can't.... i have better stuff to waste my time on.

all i have to say is thank you so much WMR because had i not know i would have bought the remaining volumes that i don't own and then i would have been upset. cause i would have wasted more money then i already have on this series.

but yeah i did try to make my own opinion... but it's just too gross for me to continue... i can't.... i just can't.

however rin as a kid is well done... why did the author have to screw it up so badly.

but in the end... it's their story... they can do whatever they want with the characters.... just as i can refuse to read anymore of their titles.

though honestly.... of all the shows that exists.... WHY did they try and make this into a show for children? honestly.
oh and yeah... if you couldn't tell i actually like the english intro... again pure nostalgia glasses and i like Yakusoku wa iranai a million times more but considering it doesn't ever break into rap.... it's a decent english intro.

So yeah back in the day a show started playing on Fox called escaflowne, and someone can correct me if i'm wrong because my memories of childhoos are kinda crappy but i think it eventually moved to YTV which is a channel in Canada aimed kids, until Teletoon came along fox and ytv were the only channels we go anime on.

so.... what's the show about? why was it turned into a kids show?
lets find out.

now i'll be telling the plot of the uncut version cause...thats what i remember.... i barely remember the english dub other then that intro and the fact that it has allthse weird edits and jumps around a lot.

Hitomi is a young girl on a track team who also tends to be really good at reading Tarot cards, however one day a few odd things happen. She starts seeing a boy in short visions, she finds out the boy she has a huge crush on is moving and she hasn't had the chance to confess her love yet! so she asks him to time her run and if she gets under 13 seconds, a personal best for her, she would ask him for a kiss.
if you hadn't gathered by now YES i consider escaflowne to be, for the most part, a shojo title. i don't think it technically is but i consider it to be.
anyways she can't finish the dash cause a pillar of light appears infront of her and that boy she saw in the vision is now there and she bumps into him.
The others can't understand him but she can.... something that is never furthered and only mentioned the one time... awww.
anyways soon after a dragon appears and the two start fighting. the boy wins, rips out the dragons heart and a pillar of light grab both him and Hitomi.
She wakes up being able to see the earth and moon in the sky, apparently she is on another world called Gaea.
um... so stuff happens and eventually we find out Van, the boy, is king of this town that gets destroyed and so they leave to try and be safe and meet up with Allen and yeah... shojoness ensues with the occasional mech battle.
I love this show... yes i know it is actually classified shonen but it's not.
The story is about a girl trying to figure out how she really feels about everyone around her, she's trying to come to terms with the fact that she is special with being able to see the future and all and the fact that others may rely on her to the point of using her ability.
and no she isn't like "omg i so in love but with both of them... which do i pick?" she spends most of the show crushing on one guy but as time goes on she starts to realize her true feelings and then she has to come to grips with that.
the show also has a strong "why must it always come down to fighting" theme which for a show thats is probably half fighting it's a bit nice.
it does have one 'look into your soul to obtain new skill' fight but i think it only happens once and it feels honest.

Spoiler
though seriously this show is pretty old....

anyways the ending is my favorite part.
cause all that talk of who does she care for the most
all that realizing that Van is the one she loves with all her heart.
in the end... no one hooks up with anyone.
Hitomi goes back to earth and occasionally sees van in the distance.
Allan continues to be a knight to the princess... if he hooks up with her it doesn't matetr but i hope he doesn't cause he did have an illegitimate child with her older sister....
but it doesn't feel like there was forced romance... in the end Hitomi had to 'return with the elixer' which in this case was having gone through a rough situation and grown up to be more confident in herself and less fickle.
actually this follows the heroes journey pretty close now that i think about it... oh well if i compare the two we will be here all day.

anyways i like that a show that has romance in it doesn't forget that if they got together one of them would have to give up pretty much everything for the other.

End Spoiler

The good:
While the art is dated it still is really pretty... their noses are ridiculous but at least it wasn't just a single line (more on that in my first look of spring 2013), the animation is well done... even if their is some dodgy cg and the character designs are very unique.
The music is also really good... i mean... Yoko kanno? Maya sakamoto? both are amazing and Hajime Mizoguchi does a wonderful job of the score... one of a few anime soundtracks i own.

The not so good:
ending, even though i love it feels rushed, it needed another season/half season to flush it all out (considering it was meant to be 39 episodes originally it all makes sense)
It has a lot of Shojo elements for a shonen series and it has a lot of shonen elements for a shojo series.
if you like your anime clear cut between the two genres then this may not be for you... but honestly i think it's a perfect balance.

the bad:
things are brought up that should be be important and never really followed up on. this is probably just the part of me that feels everything should have meaning but yeah it was just little things in the end...

i really enjoy this show...

but~ how could they turn it into a kids show?
characters get killed in many gruesome ways, there are illegitimate children, theres talk of experimenting on children, characters get burned alive.
then there's all that icky romance and kissing stuff that just cannot exist in a show without turning them into cousins (here's looking at you Sailor moon and cardcaptors)
apparently they did eventually cancel the show cause they realized that the characters were going to war and people were going to die and if they edit it all out the show could probably be 13 episodes long.
or maybe they realized one character ended up changing in a way that they were worried the little kids would start asking.
or maybe they figure out it was stupid to turn something aimed at teenagers into something for children....
who knows...
either way got some laughs when i watched the uncut version and a silly english intro i get to be nostalgic over.

Saturday, 6 April 2013

not that it matters cause eventually they will make a season two... great.

two things about this review.
i'm going to be comparing it to other Key/visual art titles (just calling it Key from now on) is it unfair? yes but i feel i can't explain my opinion without comparing it.
I'm going to be spoiling most of it... casue i can't explain my opinion without outright spoiling things.

if you are curious about the show go watch it before reading the review.

So.... lets first bring up the order chart for Key titles.

1. Clannad/clannad after story
2. Kanon 2006
3. Air - but it only gets this high cause i enjoy the episodes that take place in the past.
4. Angel Beats... which maybe should be on the list cause it's not really Key but it kinda is so it's here.

Where does little busters sit based solely on it's first season?
5. Little busters!

now i should make it clear that i don't dislike any of these titles. Angel beats had great music but wasted potential that ended up being a rushed ending that kinda spit in the face of the series as a whole.

Little busters is worse then wasted potential... in fact this show had no potential for great thought provoking plot by the way it's set up... no this story is worse simply because everything is so bloody easy.

so... at a base level the story is about Riki, a boy who made friends while he was in the hospital dealing with the loss of his parents and the appearance of his Narcolepsy. This group is known as the little busters and they fight evil... you know as kids do.
so far i thought this was a really cute premise for a story and considering none of the other key stories deal with the childhood friends growing up and possibly going different ways story.. .though clannad kind of touches on is cause they leave highschool but still... i thought it was a different route from their other stuff.
and to be fair in season two that may be where they go.... sure as hell was not where they went for this.
instead now the little busters are in highschool, and they want to make a baseball team cause the leader deems it so.... but baseball teams need 9 members and it's just the 5 of them... and one wants to play kendo cause that's what he's trained for and one cannot possibly play two sports. (only saying that half sarcastically cause i happened to play Basketball and Volleyball and I was on the track team at the same time through Elementary school and i would have through highshcool but i moved a bit through the year and that made things tricky... anyways sarcasm over) '
anyways so they need to fill the team all the way to nine... but the little busters still kinda just wanna have fun so they invite friends they make along the way.
and by friends i mean Moe girls.

now i can hear you say, how can you bitch about Moe girls when you stated you liked all the titles key has done including clannad which is moe as hell.

The difference between Clannad moe and LB! Moe.

Nagisa vs Rin
Nagisa: a sickly girl who is a bit shy since she had to repeat a year due to missing a lot of school. She desperately wants to join the drama club but currently it doesn't have enough members to be considered a club... she in in fact the only member, with Okasaki and the others help she makes the club possible and gets to preform on stage. She feels guilt over her parents havign to give uptheir dreams because of her constant sickness but she still tries her best, in the end it costs her more then anyone was expecting but through hard work and torutre and tears everything works out in the end.

Rin: she's afraid of people and likes cats.
she enjoys fighting with the old little buster memebers since she's not afraid of them.
and she's a good pitcher.
...
NEXT

Fuko vs Komari and Kudryavka (Kud)

Fuko: the ghostly apparition of a girl who lies comatose in a hospital, she makes starfish sculptures as pseudo invitation to her sisters wedding. okazaki and nagisa help her make and spread the sculptures around school even though even those who have gotten them or are helping out seem to be forgetting fuko as her condition worsens... one character even goes to see her in hospital and forgets her completely.
still they fight it and in the end even though they don't remember why they all end up attending the wedding at the school and Fuko gets to congratulate her sister and eventually she may even wake from her coma.

Komari: She enunciate every single possible syllable to every character in every word, she had stars in her hair bands which are apaprently wishes and she has a mental breakdown every time she sees something die/dead.
but then Riki talks to her her and draws her a picture book and cures her PTSD....

Kud: Kud is a Russian girl raised on a little island nation that had a space program and her mom is a cosmonaut, she's named after one of the dogs that went into space so she sais Wafuu all the time (not the first character in key to have some stupid sound they make but this one grated on me as much if not more then Gao) and she is obsessed with space... however despite her genius level intellect she cannot understand english.... i don't blame her it's a stupid language.... anyways... tomorrow her mom is oging into space off that tiny rocket.
i don't need to say what happens next cause think of the most cliche plot point dealing with astronauts and trying to make the viewer cry...
so anyways she goes to the island to see if everything is okay, get kidnapped and hung in a cave naked with only her cape and then through the power of MAGIC NARCOLEPSY Riki sends her an item that helps her break free, she sees the southern cross and then shortly after is in japan cause you know.... we want to be told all that interesting stuff like seeing family in flash back...

are you seeing my point? Clannad is moe, i cannot deny this, but they moe is a side trait to make them more cute.... they are well developed characters first.

and don't even get me started on the obvious twins.... ah screw it i'm gunna anyways.

Kyou/ryou vs Haruka/kanata

K/R: Both like okazaki but one is much more friendly with him because she isn't as shy... still she tries to help her sister get with him even though they aren't the best match... they are too shy and awkward together.... in the end the friendlier twin wonders if theres more she can do even though part of her is happy the relationship is failing, it makes her feel bad so she ends up just avoiding them both, not for pity but because it makes her feel guilt. still she wants to be with him and even if it' just as a friend thats okay.

H/K: they know they are each others twin and we know they are twins cause thei have the exact same hue of Fuscia hair, are the same hieght and same age.... they do have different fathers and one was a scumbag and one wasn't... and one ofthe girls was treated horribly but the other one was shunned but in comparison led a happy life.
then they decide they don't care who's the bums daughter... end plotline.

yeah i'm not a fan of the twins in clannad but they have more depth then "omg who's my dad?"

i could compare the rest... not going to bother... it's similar... they are defined by their plot not my their emotions. I like characters that are driven by the life they have led not the traits that define them... so one more caprison.

Okazaki and Riki

Okazaki: his mother died when he was small, he and his father haven't gotten along especially since it's his fathers fault that he sustained an injury that stopped him from playing basketball, with no way to let out pent up stress and rage he spends a lotof his time fighting and starting over at his friends Dorm. He hates his school, he just wants to grow up and move far away from this town that seems to have cursed him. However one day he meets a girl at the bottom of the hill and finds he feels better of using all the pent up energy for productive measures instead of destructive ones.... however letting people into you life is never easy and the more he lets her and his other friends in the more he has to deal with his feelings instead of pushing them aside. The shit hits the fan and he fidns he's not able to follow through with his resolve... he misses out on the most important part of someones life and ends up following in his fathers footsteps... until he works his ass off to change it.... it gets sad but in the end it's all happy.

Riki: i already said his parents died and that he has narcolepsy (WHICH aside from being MAGIC at point only ever appears in episodes where he mentions it... i can think of one exception to this but every other episode it happens.... and in the exception he mentions it in the episode before....so... yeah...) and he prety much solves everyones problem and makes the little busters into a baseball team good enough to beat the coaches of all the other sports teams... to be fair they ahven't been practicing in baseball so i kinda buy it but he didn't really work for it...
and again.... defined by plot points and character traits instead of life experience.... okay so he sees himself as weak... great is he trying to change this? not the they very end? then why not just skip to that?

again it's unfair to compair two things that only sahre a tiny bit of similarity... i don't care.... i really looked forward to little buster cause the characters were colourful and nicely designed and there were more then two male characters.... and i was treated to this lazy excuse of a plot.

i said around the time of magic narcolepsy that if his narcolepsy is cured by the power of friendship i would greatly consider flipping something.... not a table cause honestly i'm too weak to manage that one. So far it hasn't happened but at the end of this season they teased the next one.... so probably another 26 episodes to cure the narcolepsy with the power of friendship.... great.

this show bugs me.... no one has to work for anything....
even the "if you do these i'll tell you the secret of the world" tasks they get are done with easy.... feed the entire school? it's tricky but no problem... put on a puppet show even though you never have and you need to make the puppets and it needs to be done tomorrow? no biggie!
considering how indepth and how small things were clues to everything in clannad and kanon to see this which is not subtle about a single thing.... i mean "oh it'll be bad luck if i watch my mom who i promised to go to space with rocket launch" ARE YOU KIDDING ME? we ALL know where thats going... and whats worse.... whats is SO MUCH WORSE... somehow they managed to get out.
um.... pretty sure they seal you up pretty tight in those... and even if you did get away.... it happened on the launch pad.... and the force when outward...... RAWR i cannot describe how mad i was at this.
even getting away from being kidnapped was simple.

but.... but it's not all bad right?
no....
so yeah...

The good:
I adore the intro song, it is so much fun to sing along to and it's just got this nice intro bit before the song starts that for some reason i don't know makes me smile.
the ending song is decent.
um... the ending preview has cute little sprite versions of the characters playing baseball as the spoilers for the next episode run.
the character designs are decent though their hair is getting a little ridiculous... looking at you twin with the ponytail.

the preview for season two looked good... mostly cause it had some drama.... but this looked like it had drama too and yeah... it doesn't.

the not so good:
the plot sucks
friends get together and play baseball even though they are terrible at it does not make for a good plot... it can be the side plot... adn they try to make it.... but honestly riki solves everyones problems thought magic narcolepsy is a much worse plot...
why couldn't they just go with The friend you have as kids may not be the friends you have as adults and how do you deal with that.... it looks like season 2 will touch on this but honestly i am not holding my breath. you had 26 episodes to have some semblance of plot that would make me give a shit about at least one of these characters... but i can't... cause they aren't characters... they are placeholders for character traits that instantly vanish after being helped so they just kind stick around but do nothing.

The bad:
i think i've been pretty clear on most of the things that would make the show conisdered bad.
except one.
The animation is terrible.
i'm sorry but maybe i just don't like J.C staff animation... it's just.... it has all the floaty qualities of moe with all the where do i plant facial features derpyness and it just doesn't look good at all.
Clannad looked stunning but clannad was done By kyo-ani and even though it's there fault a certain other moe style has come into exsitance they still have gorgeous animation.
so yeah everything i said above plus bad art.... ugh this show.

so why did i watch to the end?
i love all of key's other things even angel beats which is just kinda mediocre in my mind is still a good show... i had hopes this show would get better.... and it kinda got worse... whenever season 2 comes out i may give a few episodes a try but if something doesn't change then i'm sorry but i just cannot care about these people for about 26 episodes.

Between this and hakkenden and finding out how usagi drop ended i'm feeling super negative today... not to mention my wrist is in pain so i gotta slow down the drawing.... it's driving me nuts cause i wanna work on my new estelle piece but i can't even hold the tablet pen.... i need something to life my spirits....
yay for Virtues last reward and insanely pretty cases for my 3ds.

i think... this may be the last show from winter i need to review... except the ones that continued into the spring season of course. i wish i could leav winter 2013 on a higher note cause even though it had one of the worst shows i have ever seen it had a few gems...
spring 2013 doesn't look that hopeful unfortunately....
i'm going to be using the word moe A LOT during my first luck.
but until then thank you for reading to the end you crazy masochist.... i better get back to watching the eden of the east movie so i can properly finish my review....

there's a three month break between season 1 and 2 so i figure i may as well talk about season 1 while it's fresh in my mind.

when i first watched the preview for this show my first thought was. "wow, this is a really pretty show" i knew nothing about the Hakkenden (and to be fair i only know a little bit about it now even after watching many different videos talking about it/the show) and i was going in to the series completely blind.

Then i watched the intro song and noticed something.
first 30 seconds:
cool lots of action, lots of pretty boys
Next 30 seconds:
even more pretty boys and quick flashes of past and furture... cool.
next 25 seconds
cool you get to see a bit of the conflict with a character you may trust at the start
final 5 seconds of intro:
Oh this is a shonen Ai title.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

it was just like "oh yeah look at all this cool stuff oh and fun fact boys will be getting really close to each other constantly."

however it wasn't only done for fanservice (well... okay most of it was but honestly i've seen worse for the 'we are just trying to get money from girls' anime genre) so i continued to watch hoping for a decent story.

I really should learn by now that Hope is not a plan. i need to start planning to enjoy shows...

this show is mediocre at best.
Yes the art is pretty but the plot is pretty much none existent.

Shino, a young boy was left dying in a field with his friend Sosuke, a man with blond hair and church garb comes up to them and offers them to chance to live with the price being that Shino will house a demon that will eventually end his life and Sosuke will fuse his soul with the pet dog.

Fast forward a few years and that man who saved them is now their guardian and has given the two the task to find others who have beads like they have had since they were born, there are 8 beads in total. he could have also told him that they will probably have similar birthmarks and have the character for Dog somewhere in their last name but details details.

however all that plot i just mentioned.... never really furthered.
i mean we the audience know he's found at least 3 other... hell 4 other Hakkenden but Shino, who i should mention hasn't aged a day, is just a stupid kid who can't put things together.
i can count 3 episodes where the beads are even mentioned.
i dunno this kinda stuff just annoys me cause you set up the plot... and then you ignore it for a quick cash in at the end to be like "well remember folks... this is was the story is really about.... in three months maybe we'll actually get back to that instead of just having Shino be the crazy whiny but incredibly whiny kid he's been all season so far.
that or we'll just throw more shonen ai themes at you cause you're women and thats all you care about.
it was just so lazy.
for 13 episodes there was a ton of filler and the filler was just fanservice.
i do not like fanservice for the sake of fanservice... if it drives the plot forward then great but if you are just doing it so that you can entice people to watch cause it was in the ending stinger of the previous episode.... yeah screw you get back to the plot.
Also this stupid CG furry eyeball thing is never explained.... 13 episodes and i kinda wanna know what is going on with it. but nope... gotta take the lazy route.

The good:
The intro song and ending songs were great, really set the mood for an action heavy show.
the art and animation is stunning, bright and colourful and really works well... i espeically love the eyes though i hate the way they colour the eyelashes cause.... eye colour doesn't determine lash colour....
thats a rant for another time though.

The not so good:
13 episodes and i can name only 2 plot relevant episodes and both are near the end.
Hamaji, the girl who was around when shino and sosuke made the deal to live.... she is there for a chunk and they make it seem like she's important to the main two but she almost never meets up with them, she is pretty much the "make shino do stupid shit he should know not to do" plot device so she gets kidnapped a few times... then when they are done with her they ship her off to boarding school where boys can't go on property and the next time we see her is for all of 2-5 minutes of the final episode. again.... LAZY

The bad:
I'm just realizing how much this show annoyed me, i honestly wasn't this irritated when i started to write this...
anyways th worst thing about this show is the wasted potential. this could have been a great show where he's searching for the other Hakkenden in secret and maybe he manages to get them all one by one.... instead he finds 3 almost immediately, doesn't realize what they are but they are all gathered so when he does realize it's all good that things just HAPPENED to work out.
oh but theres this other guy and he looks liek one of the hakkenden and oh no whats his deal.... oh just getting super close to shino for the ending stinger..... GREAT....
worse then the way the plot is handled and the characters are handled is the fact that it's so lazy.... i hate lazy things, it just makes me mad.

am i going to watch season 2? only if the summer season doesn't have much to offer....
though it better cause so far with Spring 2013 only one title looks interesting to me... the rest looks like/is moe garbage that i rather not waste my time on.... but more on that after the first ep of every show i plan to try is out.

Friday, 5 April 2013

um... well first off when i first saw the art i commented on how it looks a lot like honey and clover.... cause it's the same creator.

and honestly these two shows couldn't be any more different.

so... eden of the east.. it's about... um
well i guess it's about a guy who loses his memory and finds himself naked in front of the white house and a few cops who are interrogating a girl for having thrown a quarter onto the whitehouse lawn.
This guy eventually finds out that he is a Selacao (i know i spelled it wrong... don't care) which apparently means he has a crazy phone that can do almost everythign he asks of it and a lot of money... like... 8 billion Yen.
still he doesn't know who he is, if he's good or bad, if he's guilty of the things he's being blamed for.
and then the show kinda ends.
i mean it has a clear cut ending it just doesn't tie up everything... i don't think you can finish a plot like this in 11 episodes.
Luckily at least one of the movies is on netflix so i'll make a more concrete opinion about the show after watching that.
all i can say right now is that i love the art and i love the ideas it's trying to put forward, i just need to see more before i can form a solid opinion.

Thursday, 4 April 2013

if you've read any of my other reviews you will notice that despite my best efforts to spell check i am terrible at spelling.

three reasons for this

I went to french immersion for K-6 only switching into English classes in grade 7, learning french didn't make me bad at spelling but it makes me think of spelling things a little differently (read as i tend to put Es where they don't belong)

My current keyboard some of the keys tend to get stuck down (which is odd cause i never have food near it so i dunno why it does that) and i don't always notice that the button didn't properly press down... or it's holding down and doing something like eeeeeeeeeeeeeee, a side not to this is i move my right hand more when typing so my left hand can hit buttons faster resulting in ING looking like Ign and Like looking like liek. i try to catch that one but sometimes i miss it.

English is stupid and has some really stupid rules that for the life of me i will never understand... how is Djinn pronounced Genie? HOW?? ok i know how and thats not fair cause it's trying to pronounce another language but there are times where i have the word i want to say and i try spelling it and i get the red line o' doom and i try to fix it but the computer has no idea what i was trying to say so i look it up and find out that it looks NOTHING like how i would have spelled it.

Essentially all that is saying this review may be a little worse for spelling for the others.... and i don't care.

unfortunately that is not the only spiel i have to make before the review.

You may notice that as far as my personal taste goes i tend to not be a huge fan of shonen.
While i have nothing against shonen i just find it incredibly boring... most of it puts me to sleep.
But how can something so action packed and more often then not full of fighting be boring?
simple
in the end you always know who's going to come out the victor.
a character may die or get hurt but in the end the hero almost always in one capacity or another wins.
cause we like to see people who we are cheering for win.
I'm not criticising this, it sucks when a character goes through their arc and yet continues to be beat down and punished *cough Apollo's Song cough* but it does make a series more predictable.
I greatly dislike knowing the outcome, any time i guess the ending to something i get irritated because i like being surprised.
so essentially that's why i stay away from shonen, anime... hell any story that revolves around fighting in my eyes is boring.

ok... i think i've put my personal Bias out for you guys so you can understand where i'm coming from.

Magi is.... it's okay... i guess.

It has some really good parts and a lot of really funny and character driven moments but there are also moments that make me ask "ok... but why do i care?"

The basic story is that the world is driven by 'destiny' as a theme, a little more on that later... but essentially there is the life force that's in everyone, some more then others and there are also these people known as Magi who have and endless stream of this stuff and they end up being the ones who pick kings.
not all Magi or people are good or evil... a lot of time they have to fight the darkness in their heart especially when you consider that destiny may mean everything is just predetermined... if it's all going to come to pass whats the point of it all?
still perhaps the idea of destiny is misconstrued and they must work together to steer destiny in the right way.
and it all seems to be on the shoulders of some blond street rat named Alibaba.
oh.... oh.... great.

I would say more but it would get into spoilers so i'll leave it at that...
yeah i didn't describe the plot at all but i found the Theme of this series infinitely more interesting then the plot.
i mean if you wanna know the plot its The magi Aladdin finds the street rat Alibaba and helps him conquer a dungeon and get a Djinn which is the first step to making him king, adventure ensues.

The good:
I'm realising how important music is to my enjoyment of media... sad that it took nearly two years of writing these to see that i almost always focus on music.... anyways the music in this is a lot of fun and fits the mood and even helps with then more heartbreaking moment.
I found myself getting really invested in some characters so when they were down on their luck i believed it and i think i may have cried once.
The animation while i bit floaty in fight scenes can be extremely pretty and detailed... it just has such a neat style to it.
Some really funny burst out laughing moments, also as a contrast scenes with no fighting and just character development are also really well handled... Someone i watch online recently said that the most boring thing about sinbad movies/tv is sinbad.... i found sinbad in this to be quite amusing if not a little overpowered.

The not so good:
In one of my past reviews i said that if i got behind by 3 episodes i would probably just give up... this one was the opposite... i kept falling behind and after three new eps were out i'd finally tell myself that i should go watch it cause i was enjoyable...
however.... again... i find shonen a little boring... this show was no exception.
it has some character driven moments and those are golden but it's just overshadowed by the sheer amount of fighting and oh no i'm being overpowered but no in the end i'll look into my soul and realise something and overpower you even though the odds are against me EVERY SINGLE TIME.
ugh... i like the show... i really do... i just.... it's SO predictable... maybe if the story was shorter? (cause this is only completed season 1.... season 2 will air in the fall) but no... every time.... i hate anime that revolves around fighting.

The bad:
if you don't like jokes about someone who looks ten snuggling well endowed 'big sisters' well then some of the elements in this show may turn you off.
if you hate anime that revolves around fighting or around making your weapon stronger through will power... then you will absolutely hate this show.
if you hate the "but i'm not left handed" trope you will hate this show.
this is personal to me but too many characters who i couldn't even tell you their names if i tried

The show is in no way bad.... i know a lot of people really like it... and i can see why... it's got this adorable charm to it that i find lacking in a lot shonen titles.
It's not really for me, i may or may not watch the second season cause i'm kinda in this odd place of "yeah i liked the show but i don't really care what happens next" so we'll see how it goes.
but if you like shonen titles i think you'd be robbing yourself of a really good one if you didn't give this show a shot.

like everything else this season it's streaming at crunchyroll and the final episode will be free for viewing next week minus one day cause i had some catching up to do and didn't get to watch it till just now.

wow this was.... longer then i expected... probably cause of my rambling nonsense at the start... sorry about that.

Tuesday, 2 April 2013

i have a feeling this will be long simply cause i love the fire emblem series and have a lot of stories.

so the TL:dr;
If you like turn based strategy roleplayign games with great music and interesting characters you need to try this game, it's really really good.
Oh... and the guy with a pot on his head? yeah train him cause he's the best character.

okay onto the review.

To date i have played all the North American released Fire emblem games however i still have radiant dawn and shadow dragon half beat.... maybe after playing some other games in my pile i'll go back to them.
So... to say the least i like the series
a lot.
so from the start i was biased towards the game.
it was just so pretty, they lack of ankles and feet didn't bug me... the music was some of the nicest i had heard in the series.
though some things were.... off.

It felt easier.
I don't think it actually is easier... i think the fact that they got rid of 1 mission really made it less stressful.

Now one thing that i loved about the fire emblem series was that there was a challenge to keeping everyone alive, this game does something brilliant.
You can choose to play the classic mode, which is hard and stressful cause if the character dies then they are gone for ever.
or you can play casual where characters don't die.
this is great it appeases both types ofpeople who play games like this.
I, foolishly, picked classic....
yeah when i was training donnel (kid with pot on head) i had to restart a lot... do yourself a favor and just play casual...

the other thing this game does is allow units to pair up/get bonuses from units around them... a welcome addition.
However it got rid of the rescue or push system that i had grown to love and abuse. oh well each one tries to change it up.

the last thing i think it added was the ability to hook up compatible characters and then later recruit their children. I still have 2 kids to get but i wanted to play virtues last reward and that meant beating this game.
however the addition of the children seems to have taken away the branching paths aspect. in earlier games sometimes you'd have to fill out random requierments to get a side quest.
either i didn't manage to do this or they just aren't in this game.
it also makes me think that this is one of the first fire emblems were you can get every character on one playthrough. the others ones you have to play multiple times or do a branching path or something.

essentially what i'm saying is that it has a lot of new features but that that means it may have gotten rid of an old one you liked.

The plot:
Chrom and Lissa as well as a band of 'Shepards' find an unconscious person on the side of the road. This person is your avatar that you make at the beginning of the game.
this is not the first time an avatar character is used, in the first Fire emblem game to come to north america (FE7? i think...) you also get to name an avatar that acts as tactician but never fights.
in this you get to fight... or do what i did and break the game.... more on that later.
anyways chrom helps the avatar and eventually they work together cause the avatar is such a great tactician.
however the world is on the brink of war, other nations are being corrupted by evil and theres rumblings that an evil that has been sealed for ages is about to reawaken.
well thats no good so you work together to try and stop that... save your country and also the world~

although the avatar has amnesia... and it's past seems to be quite a bit more complicated then anyone could guess.

So.... STORY TIME:

How Kat Broke the game:
I turned my avatar into a character who couldn't be hit, almost everything was %0-%10 hit and even if it did hit it was 0-5 damage... and by end game her health was around 70. I think this is something that will change but in FE7 characters were advanced with class specific items that you may find early one or may find later.
you only had so many and you had to pick and choose... this was actually pretty hard but i made do.
in this one you get Second seals which advance anyone over lv ten to a different class.
or you get a master seal which allows a lv 10 character to pick between one of the branching paths that is specific to their class.
if a second seal is used on a master class character that is over lv 10 they can change class and get new master class benefits OR they can change to the same class and not loose any poitn and have the ability to level up.

second seals and master seals are easy to get and eventually you can just buy them.
this makes the game a lot easier... cause one a character hits max you just send them back to lv 1 with no repercussions... i loved and abused this system but i seriously hope they change it in the next one... it made the game too easy.

How Kat figured out the game wasn't really easier... just more forgiving:
in the old games there were three mission types i HATED cause they were hard.
1. Defend for x amoutn of turn missions... normally done at the start of the game when you are still weak/don't have a lot of characters... as far as i remember there isn't a single defend for x amount of turns and if there was i didn't notice cause i was too busy sending my overpowered avatar right at the commander all by herself.
2. defend this character missions... there is one of these..... but it was easy cans there was only one entrance for the enemies to get to AND again... sent to overpowered avatar and the quickly becoming overpowered donnel into enemy territory alone and they would just stand there and kill all that opposed.
3. Ship battle, these were difficult cause they were cramped... there is one ship mission in this one and i'm pretty sure i beat it on the first try.

in old games it was just a lot less forgiving i guess..

How Kat came to Love the stupid kid with a pot on his head:
Just before i started the game my friend told me that there was a rumor going round to train the stupid kid with a pot on his head.
This character is introduced in the first Paralogue and the only way to get him to join your team is to get him to level up.
way harder then it sounded.
anyways i managed to do it and i noticed he has an ability called adaptability.
essentially he has a higher chance of upping his stats on lv up.
it was hard but the second i could change his class and eventually get him to be a hero.... he was pretty much unstopable... stronger even then my avatar or Chrom.
though he never takes the pot off his head.... but yeah seriously level him up.
also his japanese name is Dennis... why would they change that?! Donnel just.... doesn't sound as good as Dennis.

How Kat beat the last boss with 3 characters:

So.... i was on the last chapter and one of my characters died.... dammit... needed to restart... so i'm trying to skip to a place where i can bookmark and then just restart the level.
but then... 6 other characters die in one turn... characters i considered to be strong.... damn... did i need to train them more?
probably
did i?
nope.... i unselected everyone except Chrom who has to be there, Donnel and my avatar.
and cause i gave my avatar and item that allowed for more movement and when i changed her class for a 3rd time i gave her a horse class she made it to the final boss in two turns...
by the third turn i beat the game.
i was worried that even though these were my strongest characters that they would get hurt but donnel and chrom had abilities that healed them when they attack and there skill was high enough where this was pretty much every turn... and my avatar has a weapon that healed her when he attacked..... so yeah.... i took a chance that may have made th game harder for me and in the end it made it so much easier.

Death in Fire emblem:
This is the first game i haven't lost a single character... i think in all the games i've played i've only ever lost 4 or 5 and it was always i had been stuck on a mission for a long time and i knew i oculd beat it the next turn even if it meant sacrificing your favorite character OH GOD SAIN I"M SO SORRY *sobs*.... uh... back on topic.... normally i get fed up with restarting and just continue on
not this time... even with Donnel the villager dying a lot on his way to Donnel the hero i still never gave up.
but yeah i'm still sad i let Sain die in FE7 since he was my fav.

is.... is storytime over?
ok good... good...

The good:
Music, characters (althought they aren't as memorable as some of the other series cause theres so many of them.... well... 'cept Henry.... he's pretty memorable...) story, 3d... yeah i know i'm surprised but the 3d in this actually looks really nice... and it very rarely hurts my eyes. fighting system is nice other then it's unfairly made to suit your needs more then the enemies. (if you characters stand by each other they fight together.... not true for enemies who can stand near another and not get a single bonus, maybe this is different in hard mode but i doubt it... also i played on normal... which could add to why the game was overall easy.) the support system is handled nicely and getting character hitched is a lot of fun. lots of free bonuses (though there is paid dlc...) good spot pass system where avatar of people you walk by get place in your game and you can fight and recruit them. it also harkens back to one of the other games which is nice.

just... so much good.

The not so good:
things are done that make the game too easy... if you wanna beat the game it's great but if you want challenge it's a little disappointing.
lots of choices but they don't seem to effect much... i'm going to look into this but other then the final chice it seems like it just changes dialogue.
it feels short then the other games... i dont think it is i just think since i didn't have to put it down for months cause i was frustraited with a chapter means those games felt longer and this didn't.

The bad:
i really wish some characters stood out more... i mean they are all nice but ask me about the old ones and i'll be able to tell you my fav things about 90% of them... this one i could probably do a handful.
thats all i can really think of... i really loved this game and i hope to go back to it after some Virtues last reward or maybe i'll finally go beat Devil survivor (i don't think i can beat it though... may have to go on a different path)

but yeah if you have a 3ds try this game...
unless for some reason you hate chess/turn based strategy games....
then maybe don't give it a try.

but yeah.... i'm gunan go look at my pretty fire emblem artbook and lament at some of the changes and agree with others.
oh that reminds me... in my book theres a character names Paris... i never got him... hm... maybe i did miss a sidequest...

so... i tend to do a spiel at the start of these to just state my bias right off the back. I almost always mention my complete and utter disdain for Moe and everything it represents.
Sometimes i mention how much i hate K-on! because of how utterly pointless it was, unless watching girls sitting around and eating cake and being musical prodigies with little to no effort is your thing of course.
But most of the time i just try and keep it to 'moe sucks'

So why the hell would i ever watch a show called Love live!
Because even though i have my bias i try to give things a chance in case something surprises me... like Kotoura-san did.

I tried to watch the first episode of most of the new shows this season that aired on crunchyroll. Although i was dreading this i figured giving it one episode was fair.

so whats the show about?
Honoka, a girl who loves her school life is devastated that her school will be closing since there aren't enough applicants.
she wonders how can they get more people to notice their school.
well the trending thing seems to be school idol groups... lets do that! it's should be easy right?

at this point i'm groaning cause all i can think is "great... K-on! all over again, they'll find out that they were amazing at it all along and after minimal work they will go on to win the love live thing thats in the title."

But then.... it didn't go that route.

it was hard work roping her two friends into doing it.
it was hard work tryign to get the school council to accept them as a club.
it was hard work making music and costume and dancing while smiling.
it was hard work getting more members and facing adversity.
it was hard work putting together a concert and it was even harder dealing with the fact that no one showed up to watch.

are you seeing a theme here?
NOTHING comes easy to these girls, when they aren't performing they are working hard and studying choreography or doing vocal training or making outfits.

all that being said the show is still only mildly good... i'm not a fan of the moe as hell singing girls genre but of the shows i've seen this wasn't bad at all.

however there was one thing... well two things but more on that later... one major thing that made me mad.

The dance scenes were half done in traditional animation and half done in this crappy MMD style of CG dancing models that looked odd. i get that it was done so they could pan and make the scenes more dynamic but considering hwo nice the animation was and how crappy the cg models were it was an instant disconnect.

The good:
Colourful, i really like when shows are bright and colourful and it seems to mostly happen in moe shows but thats okay.
the traditionally done animation is pretty good, to go with moe style is can get a little floaty but most of the time it feels grounded. (i know that makes no sense but want a moe show and you'll notice that the characters look like moe blobs that move unnaturally)
some of the songs are catchier then i'd like to admit but more on that later.
the story is okay and went a completely different direction then i thought it would. In fact Nothing i thought was going to happen actually happened.... if they show gets a second season (i have no idea it just felt open enough where it could) i'm sure all the stuff i thought would happen will happen but again... at least they worked for it.
also thats a positive. they work really hard for every little success.... thank you Love live for not just assuming these girls are mega talented.

The not so good:
I say this as someone who has maybe 60% of their playlist as J-pop (then 20% game/movie soundtracks/remixes and 20% Falcom music.... yes it gets it's own category)
some of the singers sounds like they've ingested a lot of helium. Their voices can be so high and grating that i wonder how much of it was augmented by a computer. I personally don't like that kind of sound coming out of a person... thats just me though and everyone is entitled to their taste.
but still the characters singing in a lower register sound so much better.

the bad:
again crappy MMD style dancing figures.

and yeah i just... think it looks weird and jarring and why wouldn't you just properly animate it all or cut to clips of the girls in school life more? (oh yeah... cause animation is expensive.)
the other bad thing is a spoiler so skip to the end if you don't want to know.

SPOILER

One of the characters finds her passion for designing outfits as she participates in the group.
Such passion in fact that she has been offered the ability to study abroad.
this is a pretty big deal and i really liked the dynamic it added cause they were sad to see their friend go but it meant she would probably get a great education doign something she loves.
however at the end one of the girls tells to main girl to be selfish and bring her back from the airport.
no.
no no no no no
no you do not get to be selfish just cause you want your friend to stick around.... you are robbing her of the opportunity of a lifetime.
What you should have done was put on one final concert as the 9 of you then brought her to the Airport and wished her luck in her new endeavors because one day you will meet again.
and who knows if there is a second season they may end up doing that but as it stands now all i can see is them robbing this girl of a great chance.
and that pissed me off.

END SPOILER

in the end the show is fine, way better then K-on but i'm not the target market.
i'd say give it a chance over and crunchyroll if you have the time, it's only 13 episodes long.

alright i just found out Eden of the east is on netflix and i have been very curious about that show.

About Me

I am an artist who enjoys reading and playing games, I probably spend too much time on the computer and i like to share my opinion on things i finish. If you have any suggestions of things i should read/watch or play please feel free to let me know.